The invention relates to power-driven conveyors generally and, more particularly, to singulating conveyors for aligning a mass of conveyed articles in a single file.
One version of singulator is realized as a central conveyor belt with rollers arranged to rotate on axes perpendicular to the direction of the belt travel. These in-line rollers protrude through the thickness of the belt and ride on a conveyor pan below the belt along a carryway. The article-supporting portions of the rollers protruding past the top of the belt rotate in the direction of belt travel to push conveyed articles forward along the belt and separate them from trailing articles. Flanking the central belt are two belts with rollers arranged to rotate on axes oblique to the direction of belt travel. The rollers on each side of the central belt rotate to push conveyed articles toward the central belt and into a single file. The combined action of the oblique and in-line rollers also tends to orient the articles with their major axes parallel to the direction of belt travel. Like the rollers in the central belt, the rollers in the flanking belts protrude through the thickness of the belts and ride on bearing surfaces underlying the belts. The three belts are coplanar with the rollers all tangent to a common plane.
One problem with such a singulator is that large articles that are wider than the width of the central belt tend to rock laterally back and forth when they are more or less centered on the singulator, but still contacting the oblique rollers on both of the flanking belts. Another problem is that narrow articles that fit entirely or almost entirely on the central belt do not orient well because they do not receive the simultaneous rotational effect caused by sufficient contact with enough rollers arranged at different angles.
Thus, there is a need for a singulating conveyor that minimizes these problems.